Parabellum
by Nothing To See Here Carry On
Summary: "If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep. Did you really think I wanted more of you?" Josef is Death Squad. He's HYDRA Elite. He is wrath, he is death, he is justice, he is sin. And Helmut Zemo needs to work on his aim. (or, how a boy becomes a monster, and a monster, a man)
1. Zero

.

 **[ZERØ]**

"So these other Winter Soldiers," as the voice filters across from the other end of the bay, he lifts the feed tray assembly of the M249 to inspect it. "They have any form of leader? Someone to take orders from?"

He checks the space between the bolt assembly and the chamber, his head tilting, eyes flashing over the cartridge indicator.

"Depends on which one of them wakes up first." Is his reply.

The Winter Soldier flattens his mouth into a thin line, inserting two fingers of the left hand into the magazine.

ETA one hour and fifteen minutes, thirty-three seconds according to the in-flight diagnostics and now, Steve Rodgers is all about the details. It's an endless rattle of questions that press on him like weapon fire. Do they have any special skills? Steve enquires. Barnes replies thinly, with little enthusiasm. It is hard to define 'special' when they utilize their abilities quo-quid-quo. He thinks it'll end there, but it doesn't. It doesn't end. He's not entirely sure why he expected it to, either.

Do they have any weaknesses? Aside from being unconscious since 1994?

Were they controllable? Certainly not by Captain America.

Could they be reasoned with? You tried reasoning with me at the beginning and look where that got you.

"They have no leadership?" The Captain is thinking of tactics and advantages; the necessity of purpose, motivation, inspiration and standards, the balance of attack brought along by a lack of structure; Barnes wants to remind him that the Death Squad doesn't work that way.

"They're individualists," Barnes replies flatly. He closes the feed cover assembly and locks it. "HYDRA called them a squad for collective cohesion, but they operated separately themselves, unless the situation required it. They had different roles. Preferred to work alone, unless the situation called for it."

"So they can't fight effectively as a unit?"

"Oh they can fight," Barnes drawls as he pushes the safety from right to left. "Perfectly well."

He thinks of the training, of the feeling of pain and the feeling of defeat ― he thinks of Comrade Karpov's short-lived smile.

He adjusts his grip on the rifle, hands sliding across the finish, and glances toward's Steve.

"If you're on the lookout for the one you need to be worried most about, I'll say watch out for all of them." Barnes, while maintaining control of the handle, presses the trigger and ease the bolt forward. "But you might want to keep an extra eye out for Josef."

There is a crease between Steve Rodger's eyebrows. "You've talked about him. He the leader?"

"Primary instigator," Barnes corrects as he stands, turns, and places the rifle back on it's rack. "One of the reasons for the suspended animation, in the end. HYDRA called it Program Failure. They couldn't use 'em because Josef ― that one ― knew how to encourage them, incite dissent. He kept, eh, "inspiring" 'em to fight back until HYDRA ended up completely losing control and Karpov finally lost his patience. Don't know if kept on doing it because he'd slipped the net, or if he just found it funny. Never stuck around long enough to find out."

Barnes thinks for a moment, and then says, in humored afterthought.

"He's very good at it, though." And his eyes wander back to the rifle, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I was proud, back then. Unpredictable mad bastard. He was very good at everything."


	2. One

.

 **[ØNE]**

Things would have turned out better if she had lived.

See, she had always been the sensible one. Bright, clean cut and the recipient of a humor bypass; but if you wanted efficiency she was the one to go to ― if you needed fire, however...

Josef had fervency. He was the spontaneous one. He had a special kind of eagerness that was as infectious as it was irresistible, but he wasn't as methodological as her, never had been. If Petra had lived, she wouldn't be here. That much, he knew.

She'd be long gone, on the search for answers, or purpose; thrumming with determination and persistence. If Petra was alive... No, she wouldn't have stayed.

She wouldn't sit here, in this tomb of a missile silo in the middle of nowhere, shivering against the bite of Serbia, of agony, with blood pouring down from a badly-aimed bullet wound. She wouldn't remain within walls strong enough to withstand the blast of UR-100s. She'd be long gone.

But Josef, ever the irrational one, doesn't go. He can hear the tremors of live fire, the thumbs of combat; man against man. He can hear it, sense it, but he doesn't move. He acknowledges the blood running down from his forehead into his eyes; he can blink it away, let it drip against the cold concrete beneath him, but he can't bring his hand up to cover it ― wipe it off. He recognizes the pain; the thrumming agony of major injury, the burn of metal against skin, but he can't feel it. Instead of moving, of exploring, of feeling; he sits, and he holds her. Kneels against his calves as he carries her dead weight in his arms, with trembling fingers, traces the bridge of her nose, the faint, almost invisible crease between her eyes, the curve of her cheekbone.

And Josef thinks, that everything from this moment forward, would have turned out far better if it was her that survived.

Petra was the better one. She had dedication. She was a natural.

Now, she was nothing. Had nothing. And neither did Josef.

Because gone with her was Aleksandr, and gone with them was Tjeerd, who had also gone with Ameqran ― and that left Josef, who might as well have gone with them too for all he had left, now.

Even before the serum, Josef was acutely aware of his surroundings. Hypervigilance, the HYDRA doctors called it, when they brought someone in to evaluate all of the Death Squad before undergoing the procedure. It was a good thing back then. It made Josef conscious, confident ― kept him safe, and despite his current condition, it keeps him safe now. He's aware of the three others. There are actually four; the one who shot him, and the three others who arrived shortly thereafter, two normal men and someone who sounds like a walking tank. There had been a confrontation, and four turned into three. Only when they were gone did Josef actually stop playing possum and pull himself from the cryo chamber.

He'd found Petra first because, for reasons entirely emotional, not hormonal ― and he's been in Cryo, so he's still chemically suppressed, although he can still feel the mingling after effects of sedation, the way his nerve endings sort of fade, numb. (It's probably the reason why getting shot in the face at point-blank range doesn't hurt as much as he thinks it should) ― she is always the first on his mind, the top of his priorities. He's dismayed when he finds her dead. Distraught and cold in the center, and that's not because of the Cryo, either.

Josef doesn't cry. He hasn't done that in... years... but he does feel sorrow, he does feel pain, and he's also Death Squad, so his first intention would be to find the sorry дерьмо́ that did this and make them pay―

Cartridge, 5.56-mm ball. With a gilding, metal-jacketed, lead alloy core bullet with a steel penetrator, effective against personnel and light materials, not vehicles. This is the bullet that killed her. His Petra. This is the bullet that did it, and Josef wants to pry the bullet from her skull like he did to himself not only moments earlier, and he wants to engrave her name on the one that he will, in turn, fire into the skull of her killer. He wants to pull that hypothetical trigger. He wants to avenge her. He wants to strike fear in the heart of her murderer. Real fear. The only kind.

The only kind.

But he can't, because he can't move, can't bring his muscles to work, can't tear his eyes away from her face. He can't leave her, not like this.

His free hand curls around the bullet and tightens. The skin of his knuckles floods white, the bones in his fingers tremble.

Yet, he also knows that he can't stay. It's dangerous. It went unsaid; the bullet, the sounds of fighting ― if they are not here specifically to kill them, they will if they come back and discover him, regardless. He shouldn't be alive. That much, Josef knows. The first one did the deed, and he failed; he doesn't want to be here if the other three decided to pick up from where the former left off.

Or, some part of him does.

Some part of him wants to run in the direction of the sounds and tear apart the first person he sees, but he can't. Three against one is easy odds for him, for Death Squad, but not when they are weak. Not when they are injured and alone.

In fact, survival of those scenarios is what made Before into HYDRA and HYDRA into Death Squad.

And that, Josef does know.

 **•**

Let it be said, that Josef joined HYDRA willingly.

At no point was he forced, per se ― he knew to some extent what was needed of him, what was required. He knew that he was joining HYDRA for very specific reasons, and that those reasons were the more ideologically "pure" goals in which made HYDRA, HYDRA and not some well-equipped gang of neo-nazi lunatics (although, he knew, that was exactly what HYDRA was ― and Josef had since become a master of the Art of Pretending Otherwise).

What he didn't know, of course, was that there were other ideas to be had, in this great wide world. Partly because the place he grew up, there was only one belief that rang true.

Born and raised under the Butcher's reign, attacked victimized by General Kamil Novoty; in a country proxy-led by HYDRA to the point of near destruction, Josef Mikolinac absorbed the mantra and doctrine as easily as anyone else might absorb the lessons of literacy and wisdom ― half-cocked, with some severe misinterpretation. For the Republic of Sokovia was originally Soviet, not Nazi (although it had been invaded during the war, if Castle Bratistin was any indication), and that led to immense changes in it's regional supporters that HYDRA itself was somewhat unaware of. A big, gaping mistake.

It meant that in the orphanage, where HYDRA advocates raised it's enthusiastic young recruits, it's future soldiers and champions, Josef and his fellow brothers and sisters received the right kind of ideals... just not the right instruction.

HYDRA weren't liberators ― they were a deadly force that could not be overcome. Heros? Not a chance. But they had to be served for the good of the world, and indeed, Josef and his comrades would be the forefront of the most excellent cause in the world! They will do great things in it's service! ... Just expect some hardships along the way. It's for the best, trust us.

In the short term, it mattered little.

In the long term... it meant everything.

 **•**

It takes a long time for Josef to stand up. He doesn't let Petra go, but instead cradles her to his chest in a sick parody of a bridal carry as he turns around to reorientate himself. The base had four floors that he knew of; structural evidence suggested that it had more, possibly six or seven, but Josef, previously, had only ever been allowed on those four; possibly to keep them, or something else, contained. This was the lowest level; shared by the launch pad turned Cryo floor. The launch pad actually continued up to the blast doors on the surface, he knew, but he couldn't go out that way. That was where the fighting was coming from.

The base had four floors that he knew of; structural evidence suggested that it had more, possibly six or seven, but Josef, previously, had only ever been allowed on those four; possibly to keep them, or something else, contained. This was the lowest level; shared by the launch pad turned Cryo floor. The launch pad actually continued up to the blast doors on the surface, he knew, but he couldn't go out that way. That was where the fighting was coming from.

And he wouldn't survive without supplies. He knew that. So he stumbles towards the back end of the launch area; towards the doors, where there were actual floors. He tries to remember where was what and what was where.

The pain makes that... very difficult.

Not just the pain, either. The consequences of catastrophic brain trauma are, he guesses, very severe. He can't remember what he was doing before. There had to be a reason why they were in cryo; they never used to do that, something must have happened, but for the life of him he can't remember what.

Stunned, confused and numb with grief and lingering chemical stupor, Josef resorts to the simple things.

Easy commands.

Okay now, Josef; move here.

Open this door, Josef.

Walk up these stairs.

Turn this corner.

Josef, walk down here.

It's the same tactic they used in the old days, he thinks, with great difficulty; when they had concluded treatment and couldn't handle the sudden hormonal and chemical changes, the increases in norepinephrine, epinephrine; adrenaline, ACTHs and cortisol, all those polypeptide tropic hormones produced and secreted by the anterior pituitary gland which freaked out during transformation, which in turn made them borderline on erratic with the lack of neurotransmitter balance. When they had to take sixty steps back and re-train themselves to function because, as it turns out, the serum didn't just change them physically but mentally and that is just too much too soon for anyone to handle.

He's not unbalanced now, but he's most certainly damaged. It works the same way.

But he finds his room, eventually. The place he remained when they weren't frozen. It's dark and small with little floorspace, but he has to set Petra down; so he stoops low, lying her gently between the wall and the bed, a movement that causes him to overbalance in his weakened and disorientated state, arms flailing too late, too slowly, and he catches his elbow on the concrete, breaking skin, before crawling over her to grasp the edge of the nearby dresser to support himself.

He tries to blink away the pain. It doesn't work. If anything, it actually makes it worse.

The agony is starting to creep back; he can feel it, slowly ebbing and pounding, until he tried to move again, and he was suddenly blinded with flashing colorful spots. He leans against the dresser, hard, and craved darkness, quiet and stillness.

But he wouldn't get that, at least, not here; the fighting was still going on, he could hear. He needs to go.

He needs a plan. Josef looks around in his confusion. He doesn't know what to do. There are no HYDRA here. He is sure, now; judging by the fact that they tried to kill him, that the base has been compromised. That means escape. That means... that means actually gathering enough supplies to escape. Equipment was needed, he knew. He can't remember what it is, but he knows he needs it. Pushing away from the dresser, ignoring the way his skull aches and pounds furiously with each movement, he tries to remember where he might keep such things.

Frenzied searching uncovers that, for some reason or another, he actually has a bag prepared, under his bed. He can't remember preparing it. Josef actually doesn't remember owning it flat out, but it's something.

Why he needed it he does not know, but inside he finds what he assumes he might need, if he was to leave. Enough equipment and food to last him three days, it appeared. That is, he guesses, if he could keep it down with the injury; he feels sick even now, and the pain was quickly coming back after being numbed with the sedation they had given him prior to cryo. He certainly doesn't feel like eating.

In that case, the first aid kit would be useful; but it was small and basic, filled with adhesive and fabric bandages and single trays of aspirin and ibuprofen, plus a thermometer and a forty page first aid guide written in Russian, but no sutures or tools, nothing he could actually use in his current condition.

Not that he'd be able to perform proper first aid on himself confidently regardless, but if he needed actual medical attention, he'd have to go to a hospital, or a doctor. This wouldn't cut it.

With that came other tools. A ferrocerium rod and cheap zippo lighter, a travel map written in Russian, some sanitation supplies, but no tent; one thin sleeping bag. Some documents, what looks like passport; one belonging to a Josef D. Horaček, Czech, not Sokovian ― Horaček wasn't his real surname, he doesn't think. A torch. Wind up, no batteries. A few credit cards he doesn't remember owning previously. A fixed blade and a multitool. Compass. No weapon aside from the knife.

He looks at the dresser in front of him. Clothing. He looks down at himself. He's wearing a thin set of skin-tight things. It's cold.

He'd freeze in this, easily.

Josef tries to ignore the pain festering in the front of his skull as he opens the top one. Black socks and underwear here. He pushes it back in, goes to the second one. Trousers and boots. What looks to be four bottom pairs of some form of suit. He closes that, too, then bends down slowly to check the bottom drawer. It must be the top half of those trousers; a type he is sure he has never worn, because the equipment looks strange and modern. His memory is spotty, confused; but he's sure he's never seen this before. The training gear he had before is gone. Maybe HYDRA had something planned.

Maybe they knew this would happen.

He sits down on the ground and takes out the jacket. Then he grabs hold of the top of the dresser, being very careful not to topple it, and lifts himself up to get the trousers; which have suspenders attached, and he follows them with the boots. He shuts it, then goes for the underwear. He won't take any of these clothes off, because Josef is pretty sure he couldn't muster up the required hand-to-eye coordination to actually succeed in that endeavor, and decides to put this over it instead. Layers. Good for the cold, yes? He thinks.

Sitting on the bed, trying his best not to look at Petra, Josef slides on the pants and secures the suspenders over his shoulders. He puts on the socks. Then, Josef slides his arms into the jacket, and struggles to put the zips together. He can't, in the end. So instead he just fastens the velcro together. It'll have to do.

He doesn't even bother with the bootlaces.

Dressed in something warmer, at least, Josef looks from his boots to turn his gaze to Petra. She would want him to go, and sooner rather than later. She's the responsible one. He has a bag. No real weapon, but maybe he won't need one. Even debilitated, he's killed men before with little effort; felt bones snap under his fingers with the most minimal of force. Maybe the knife will suffice. He's not sure where the conventional firearms are located here, if there is any form of an armory, nor does he want to go looking. There are enemies here. He'll leave with these.

And without Petra.

Josef sinks to his knees on the concrete and brushes the hair out of her face.

"I'm very sorry," he says in Hungarian, because even though they both understand Russian and she, Sokovian, it didn't seem right to speak in anything else. He opens his mouth to say some more, but the sounds aren't there. His mind goes blank when he tries to think of the correct word. Josef panics, if only for a moment, and then breathes out, tries to collect himself. Come on. Come on. "I need to go now." He says instead. He can't think of the words. "I'm sorry. I can't take you."

He looks around, at the white sheet on his bed, and he pulls it off with some tugging. He settles it across her limbs and torso, and stops at her neck.

"I'm sorry," he repeats. "You need to stay here. I will come back, maybe. If I can. I..." The word again, gone. Josef frowns, despite the pang of pain caused by the movement his forehead makes. Fresh blood dribbles down over his eyebrow. He lifts a hand to wipe it away. "You know I need to go now. I'll try to come back. I promise." Slowly, he bends over to kiss her on the forehead, away from the wound. "I'm very sorry."

Josef pulls the sheet over her face.

"It shouldn't have been you. I'm sorry."

And that is that. No Hail HYDRA. No other form of goodbye. Josef stands, tries to push back the loathing filling up inside, and grabs the bag behind him. He shuts the door. Walks down the hallway. There is an elevator, he remembers.

Elevator. Outside. Josef doesn't know how long he has been asleep for; now that there is nothing left, he doesn't care. He punches in the number for the surface and blinks against the sharp stabs of daybreak that filter in through the gaps above. He doesn't care. That should bother him. It doesn't, and that is... actually rather frightening. Frightening, because he doesn't know what he is doing. Frightening, because in the first time in what seems like forever, the fog that has inhabited his mind, directed his actions, has started to thin and clear. Frightening, because what he's doing now; what he will do from now on, and why; it isn't for HYDRA. Frightening, because this level of free will is not something he has experienced since...

Josef winces, throws a hand up to block the sun. Blinding white slams into the backs of his irises, burning his eyes and aggravating the already uncomfortable migraine. Before him, gradually, the wildest, most isolated region of Siberia forms, and Josef exhales at the empty landscape.

Since when? He thinks as he examines his surroundings, eyes watering, forehead bleeding, head pounding. Since... When...?

Program Failure.

He remembers Comrade Karpov. Josef spots the truck, mounted on snow tracks, and remembers the Colonel's scorn. His anger. Program Failure. Josef doesn't know what that means, but he had blood on his hands then, and now, he has his own. Maybe his will, his own, too. Maybe.

Josef feels his pulse hammering away in his neck, like it doesn't belong there, and his boots sink into the snow as he walks, crunching with every stumbling step.

For what it is worth, his own thoughts, his own blood ― Josef will take it, as he wraps his hand around the truck's back handle and heaves the door open. He'll take it because the rest of them never even got the chance.

After all, he's Death Squad. He's HYDRA Elite. He is wrath, he is death, he is justice, he is sin.

As Josef lies against the ground of the truck, between the seats, too spent to drive, too weak to move much further aside from closing the door behind him, he clutches the bullet between his fingers until he falls unconscious.


	3. Two

**[TWØ]**

In the end, HYDRA comes in many forms. There is the original sect; those who worship something dark and wrong, almost extinct after years of obscurity largely mislaid by human memory, lost to time. Afterward came the HYDRA-Abteilung of the late Nazi Germany, the more commonly identified sect, obsessed with deep science, the stuff of legend — the one that broke off and splintered into the HYDRA that destroyed S.H.I.E.L.D., obsessed with world domination, which spread across countries, across continents. Modern day HYDRA was a different sort of beast. Something different from what Josef Mikolinac served — and far, far different from what he grew up knowing.

For HYDRA is a global entity, in the end. From the Cult of Hive to HYDRA-Abteilung to the global organization that infiltrated the depths of the Soviet Union and the United States Government, to S.H.I.E.L.D., to ashes, to something else, reborn.

Josef was raised by what was known as HPEA- _Valhovka_ , but the children there called it the Orphanage. That was the HYDRA that Josef served. Not the strange, the occult; not even German, but rather the Soviet-inspired fight for global dominance in which contaminated the general view of HYDRA sometime in the late 1950s, and rose to its peak during the Cold War.

It was based off what an old Soviet-HYDRA officer saw in Belarus, Comrade Karpov once explained to Josef, years ago, in the middle of the forest, were in a compound made to look like a boarding school, little girls were trained to be cold blooded killers.

 **•**

"Are you ready, Kadet Soldat?"

"Always ready, Comrade! Hail, HYDRA!"

 **•**

The words are in his mouth when he awakes — half lucid, half dreaming, the thrum of an engine vibrating under his back, the jostles of movement; tracks powering over uneven ground. Josef trained himself years ago to never mutter the words aloud, but they are there, all the same. Debris from the same dream-sans-nightmare, echoes of propaganda he can't quite erase.

Thankfully, the movement distracts him. Josef catches himself with an alarmed motion just as the vehicle lurches forward, which prevents him from falling down into the footwells. The driver does not notice, either the movement or the noise of pain that manages to escape through Josef's teeth and lips. Josef, meanwhile, jumps into the same program that was installed from him the moment he first joined the Orphanage — the ultimate need for quietness, darkness; the ability to shroud oneself in the target's peripherals and the half shadow cast from the developing nightfall. Josef conceals himself, shock and surprise jackknifing his heart against his ribs in a hurried beat.

Meanwhile, the second half of his training screams at him to grab the driver's neck; end it with a quick jerk and the snapping of bones, but sense wins out, ultimately. Instead, Josef stays quiet and hidden, too alarmed to make any noise other than the most unobtrusive of breathing he could possibly muster.

It takes him at least thirty minutes to come up with something short of murder or jumping out of a moving truck. In that time, the driver has not appeared to have noticed Josef, nor does he (and this one is a he, Josef suspects, judging by the sound of breathing, the breadth of the arms he can see through the seats before him, and the American edged English he can hear grumbling through a man's broad voice) appear to be in good shape. The man's breathing was hitched with pain; interrupted by groans and hisses. Josef can smell blood, too. How much of it was his own remains to be seen.

There is a map strewn across the back seats. Josef had collapsed on it; used it as something to rest his head on. One route in particular (and there aren't many this far into Siberia) is marked in bright blue ink.

Slowly, very slowly, Josef sets himself into a half sitting, half leaning position. The creeping darkness covers him just enough for him to get a look at his driver without giving much of himself away, although judging by the hunched figure of the man before him, the labored breathing and the intensity of which he studied the road, this American would not likely be noticing Josef anytime soon. Not unless he made a noise, or some significant movement.

Undiscovered and unsure, Josef simply sits and examines his scenario from this new and unusual angle.

In fact, Josef simply sits there for the next mile and a half at least, strangely content in allowing this stranger to plow along undisturbed, right up until a half-buried sign crawls up before the windscreen. The nearest town was the next left. Josef checked the map again, and, sure enough, it was the only town within the next few hundred miles — and the only one in half a thousand to have a runway, just short of the military base 755 miles east.

"Take left here," Josef says without thinking, and he very nearly slaps both hands over his mouth in horror when he does.

At least he was aware of his driver; the man sat in the front seat was completely unaware of Josef up until this moment. The man screams in surprise and shock, and spins around, hands flying upwards, palms forward and fingers spread. At first, Josef thinks its a defensive reaction, but then he sees the strange circular object on the right palm and he too forces himself into a panic. Josef throws himself downward and retrieves the knife, fist flying up with such speed that, in the end, leaves them both in the quiet stillness of hysteria, only interrupted by their mutual astonishment and heavy breathing, Josef with some strange weaponry pointing in his direction, the American, with the blade of a fixed army knife up against the subclavian artery.

"What the," a pause for emphasis. "Fuck!"

And that is how former HYDRA Death Squad supersoldier Josef Mikolinac meets the self-described genius, billionaire, playboy and philanthropist Tony Stark.

 **•**

"Aren't you supposed to be dead somewhere forty miles west?" The American demands over the roar of the snow-edged wind. They face each other off over the road, having both apparently decided on evacuation of the truck, opting for more space. Yet the only thing Josef can do is blink stupidly. Forty miles. In that crawler? How _long_ had he been out?

Shaking off the unwanted thought, Josef brings the knife up higher, to his chest, arms extended, and grips it harder with both hands. He doesn't really know what to say. True, Josef knew English, very well in fact, but he was one of the poorest of the Death Squad when it came to languages. He knew a good fifteen or so; it was Ameqran, that fucking freak, who could practically speak every language on the globe.

Yet despite his fluency, Josef did not really know what to actually _say_. The American was still pointing that strange device in his direction, but Josef himself was starting to suspect a bluff; surely if he was that much of a threat, he'd have been attacked already.

"Someone must work on their aim." He says eventually, nothing else adequate coming to mind.

The American makes a chuffing sort of noise, and his lips on the right-hand side jerk upwards, traitorously, before his face returns to that wide-eyed open-mouthed horror half a second later.

"I dunno about that, man. You look in a mirror lately? Seems Zemo hit was he was aiming for." He replies.

"You do not look good yourself." Josef fires back, mildly offended despite himself.

A groan. "Yeah, no thanks to your little Winter Soldier."

And that is simply all it takes. Forget small jabs at his perceived appearance, forget everything; with those words, Josef feels like he had been hit by a freighter train. His heart jerks to a sudden, horrified stop, and for a moment, he wonders if he is still breathing. He doesn't feel like it.

"What you say?" Josef nearly shouts, fear tightening his voice, pooling in his words. " _Here_?"

The American makes to say something but Josef, tight with terror and alarm and the purest, hottest kind of dread that pools up from his stomach, makes it churn in fear while it climbs up to crush his lungs and squeeze his heart; his head spinning, gets in there first.

"The Winter Soldier!" He snaps, his accent making the English clipped, harsh. His fingers tighten around his knife hilt. "Where!?"

And he when he is met with laughter, the fear fades, replaced with a special sort of confusion that he's never really felt before (and will come to associate, later, with simply being unique to the American, and the American only). The man meanwhile waves a hand, but it's an angry movement, one made in frustration and fury.

"Gone," is the American's reply. "God knows where. With Rodgers, that flaming traitorous-"

" _Where_?!" Josef very nearly breaks down with the strain. If the Winter Soldier was here, then Josef needed to go, right this instant. Wherever the Winter Soldier was, HYDRA was never far behind, and Josef does not know where he stands with them. Doesn't know what to expect, anymore. He's been alone in enemy territories, surrounded on all sides, outnumbered ten to one, but he's never felt this way. Not since... A long time. A very long time. "You HYDRA?"

A look of genuine disgust is thrown in his direction. One so potent, that Josef finds himself actually taken aback. "What? _Me_?" The American splutters. "Come on man, do I look like I'd belong to _that_ Nazi clusterfuck?" He sets his stance, nearly half-collapsed, and rests both hands against his middle. The sudden disarm made Josef lower his own weapon in reflex. "No offense, but that whole 'Hail Hydra' thing," he squints at Josef. " _Totally_ sixty years ago."

"HYDRA are not here?" Josef questions, still on edge, but since this one appeared more inclined to talk, decidedly more relaxed. "You American?"

The wind blew again, and Josef, despite himself, shivered. It was bitterly cold, and getting dark out. Soon night would truly fall upon them. What happened then... He did not know.

"Sixth generation pure blood, boyo'," the American grinned, but it was a fake expression, one that masked fear and something else, something mean. "As American as Apple Pie — well, that's really Rodgers, but I'm getting off track-" He points a finger at Josef. "The real question is for you, buddy — are you going to jump on me and start stabbing while screaming fascist rhetoric according to St. Schmidt? Cuz' just sayin', I'd rather not get blood on the suit..." A pause. "Not that I think it matters, anymore. But hey, you gone all Barnes? Y'know, something tells me that their whole brainwashing thing isn't exactly going to plan. I mean, good for you buddy, if that's the case, but c'mon man it's starting to get a little old, that whole programmed super soldier thing. Unless you really _are_ a crazy HYDRA assassin, which- I mean, no offense, most real die-hard HYDRA already make the move, y'know. Most of 'em don't stand on ceremony, _or_ get shot in the face."

Josef frowns. He doesn't understand the man's jargon, his spiel, but the message behind his words is fairly clear.

"I do not... plan on screaming anything." Josef struggles to respond. "What are you? Who?"

"Me? Oh man, don't tell me — you've been stuck underground all this time? Really? _Man_ , as if we didn't have enough of a problem with Rodgers." A hand goes to the American's chest, and he bows, mockingly. "Anthony Edward Stark, also known as the superhero title — and, might I add, the _best_ superhero title — of Iron Man, which, did you know, is now, combined with my general awesomeness, a trademark worth $9.3 billion?"

"Stark." Josef echoes, ignoring the latter comment, memory working, his brain struggling to remember. "The... American, the ally of the capitalist Captain America?"

A sigh. He sounds almost disappointed. "Wow, what a way to blow my ego."

Josef frowns.

Another hand flip. "Yeah, okay. My dad. Guess that makes sense. I mean, you were last awake when? 1990? 1995?"

"... Ninety-three." Josef replies, uneasily. "The... Year, today?"

"Welcome to the 21st century, pal. 2016 - the year of celebrity deaths and mediocre film, and the monkey."

Josef's hands drop downward. 2016. Twenty years? It couldn't be. Josef half turned and shook his head, furious, confused. "You lie." He hissed, furious.

"Man, come on," Stark shouts. "Do you think anyone'd be rocking _this_ suit before the millennium?"

Somehow, the man's idle nonsense ends up making Josef collapse backward, landing against a snow drift in a crumpled heap, knife still held loosely between his half frozen fingers. The simple thought of it... twenty years?! Surely he could not have been asleep this long! They would have woke them! "HYDRA..."

"Failed," Stark spits. "Fucked off into hiding, I guess. We kicked their asses before the whole civil war thing. They're done for, though, man. Out of the game. For good, this time, hopefully. You lost."

Josef sits in silence for a moment. If what he said was true, if HYDRA _was_ gone... If it was true then Josef was at the mercy of whatever world power had come up in its place, or, maybe whatever government was most interested in what was left behind. Unless, that is, Josef could adequately spare himself, but for what? Josef was Death Squad. HYDRA elite. Back before, that had merit. It gave him a position of strength, combined with his comrades and allies... _Now_...

Now, Josef wasn't any of those things. Not really. Maybe, somewhere, deep inside, but he'd rather not carry the name alone. Especially not now, if what this Stark says is true. He's not going to die on the hill of a failed ideology.

Petra would have done something, Josef realizes. Not sat in a snow heap, dispairing.

Yet Josef can't do anything. Can't bring himself to stand, or even move.

"What would you do with me?" It comes out weaker than he expected, and his voice actually hitches. Josef does not fear death; he practically fought to achieve it, for there is no better honor than to die for HYDRA — at least, that was how it went back before, but he'd rather not slowly freeze to death in the middle of nowhere, either. There was no glory in that. No point.

But, strangely enough, something passes over the American's face. Something that looks uncomfortably close to pity, and grief.

"I dunno about you man," he sighs. "But I think I've fought enough for one day." He motions to himself. "Guess the same thing goes for you, huh? Zemo took a good chunk outta' you there."

On reflex, again, Josef puts the fingers of his left hand to his head. They come away bloody, still. The wound must have clotted by now, but it was still wet, and open.

In a strange hand of temporary, _hopeful_ , allegiance, Josef flashes his gaze towards the truck. "Medical supplies, in the bag. On the back seat. It... Not much, but it is something, yes?"

What comes next, Josef did not expect. A laugh, half in fear, half in genuine amusement, from the American before him. Maybe they both had gone insane. Insane with injury and distress and a lack of gravity. In that case, Josef was certainly not worthy. But then, wasn't he alive, where the other's weren't? The thought made him morose, and the anger from before cooled into bitter sorrow.

"Man, it's certainly better than freezing to death." The American stumbles over, still unsure, and waits until Josef takes his hand, which he offers after only a moment of hesitation. Josef hesitates for far longer, in comparison, but after nearly thirty years of... well, HYDRA, any sort good will, so soon, was something unheard of, and something he never expected, especially for someone who would, yes, be an enemy under different circumstances. Yet he still takes the man's hand, all the same. Allows himself to be pulled up even though he has to put most of the work in himself, in an effort to show mutual temporary camaraderie, and because he vastly outweighed the other man.

Once they are both up, the American — _Stark_ , takes him in from the boots to his bloodied forehead.

"Tony," he says, and Josef frowns until he expands on his unexpected outburst. "My name. You can call me Tony."

"Oh," he takes a step back, surprised and strangely relieved. "Josef." He replies, unsure. "My name is Josef."


End file.
